As Ye Sow
by kepulver
Summary: Rex and Ahsoka have a chance encounter with Kal Skirata.


**As Ye Sow**:

Kal Skirata walked across the tarmac at the Arca Company Barracks, his hands in his pockets, shoulders slouched forward as he slipped into his 'harmless old man; don't notice me' act.

Around him, the port was abuzz with activity. Clone troopers of various ranks and specialties moved hither and yon, toting gear and equipment, performing maintenance on vehicles or buildings or like Skirata, simply moving through on their way to the rest of the base.

There was one area that was surprisingly free of the hustle and bustle that characterized the rest of the barracks grounds. It drew Skirata's attention because of the way other clones avoided approaching or even passing the area unless absolutely necessary.

At first, Skirata couldn't quite understand why. The area had no warning designations posted -- not even so much as a Caution: Wet Surface sign. It was simply a collection of clones sitting in ones and twos, waiting. A few clone MPs stood nearby, studiously avoiding looking at the clones they were nominally guarding.

Skirata frowned. The clones weren't prisoners or disciplinary cases, not judging by the way some of them were glancing around as if they'd never seen anything so incredible as the Coruscanti skyline. Nor by the way the MPs seemed reluctant to stand too close, as if doing so might taint them.

And then it hit him. Repple-depple. Replacement Depot. These were clones who'd been reassigned and who were waiting for someone from their new unit to come along and collect them. Perfectly normal, standard operating procedure. Skirata had seen it plenty of times with other militaries.

But he'd never seen other soldiers treat a repple-depple with the same kind of superstitious dread and avoidance that he was seeing now. It made him angry, but even as he felt his anger stab at him, he could understand the rationale on the part of the clones.

Troopers in a repple-depple were there for two reasons: either they were newly arrived from Kamino or they were the sole survivor of a unit that had been destroyed or that was simply too badly damaged to keep intact.

Skirata paused and looked over the troopers waiting in the repple-depple. It was easy to tell who was which type: the new arrivals were the ones who stared at everything, even those who kept their helmets on gave tell-tale hints of gawping by their posture. The survivors sat and either checked their gear or dozed. Or, in a few cases that made Skirata's fists itch and his heart ache, simply sat apart from the others, staring down at the tarmac and trying their best not to be seen.

He wanted to do something. Anything that would make things better. Give the new ones some secret wisdom that would keep them alive; tell the veterans something that would erase the pain of being the one who lived.

But he was old enough to know there were no magic words, no secret formulas that could make everything all better. If he'd known them, he'd have told them to his boys long before now.

Skirata sighed and was about to move on when he heard the voice.

"Excuse me! Are you lost?" The voice was young, female and possessed of that peculiar blend of helpful arrogance that characterized so many of the Jedi.

Skirata turned slowly, keeping a grip on his temper and his mouth.

The Jedi was not quite what he'd been expecting. She was short, for one thing. It wasn't often that he had to look down at someone. And he'd thought that Jedi wore robes, not halter tops that left a startling amount of skin exposed and vulnerable. His _buir_-side wanted to yell at her to get some armor over that stomach, unless she was hoping someone would air her guts out.

Perhaps the least surprising thing about her was that she was Togrutan. Or that she was being followed by a very embarrassed looking clone captain.

He was an entirely different story -- nothing unusual about him as far as Skirata could see. Judging by his insignia, he was regular GAR, clearly a veteran and not a new arrival himself.

"Padawan Ahsoka, ma'am, allow me to introduce Kal Skirata," the Captain spoke Basic with the flattened accent most troopers picked up from their training computers. "He was one of the commando trainers on Kamino. He is many things, ma'am, but I doubt highly that lost is any of them."

"Oh." Ahsoka turned, resting one hand on her hip as she mock-glared at the Captain. "Y'know, you could have said that sooner, Rex. It would have been helpful." Her tone was mock-angry, one friend teasing another, not a commander dressing down a subordinate.

"You didn't exactly give me a chance, ma'am." Rex stumbled over the words. Skirata sensed he was caught between wanting to tease back and wanting to maintain discipline in front of the unknown quantity represented by Skirata himself. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

The Jedi seemed to sense something was wrong but she continued in her light tone, turning to Skirata as if trying to bring him in on the joke. "He's always saying the Army is all hurry up -- and now he's mad that I hurried? Is that fair?"

"It's 'hurry up and wait' ma'am." Rex interrupted before Skirata could reply, his tone not quite joking, not quite annoyed. "You tend to forget that bit about waiting at times. Ma'am."

To Skirata, Rex saluted. "Apologies for delaying you, sir. Jedi Tano and I were on our way tot he replacement depot when we spotted you. It took me a moment to realize who you were, sir. Sorry for the confusion."

"Don't know why _you're_ apologizing for _my_ mistake." Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest, every bit a teenage girl trying to come across as mature and worldly-wise. Skirata noted that she'd missed Rex's attempt to break off the conversation and hurry them all along. _So much for Jedi empathy,_ he thought, wryly.

Ahsoka continued: "I should have waited, Maser Skirata, but well, you're not in uniform and you looked out of place and OPSEC and PERSEC are our watchwords, as I've been told." She grinned, showing delicately predatory teeth. It was clear she was proud of her use of jargon and just as clear, judging by the glance she cut toward Rex that she wanted him to notice her using it.

"It's all right." Skirata said it to both of them, but Rex was the one who got the Hutt's share of his reassuring smile. "And it's not sir, Captain. I'm a sergeant, not an officer. Never had the manners to be an officer; too much of a scruffy _chakaar_ for that."

Rex's smile was polite, if a little stiff. Ahsoka looked confused. "What's a _chakaar_?" she asked.

"It's Mandalorian for 'scoundrel', ma'am. Most of the commando trainers were Mandalorians," Rex said. "Some of the language has filtered down from them into the regular GAR."

"Really?" Ahsoka's grin was back. "I'll bet mostly the swearing, right?"

"Not just the swearing, no ma'am." Rex's back stiffened.

Skirata nodded toward the clones waiting at the repple-depple. "I hope you're not having to take too many of them," he said. _Meaning: tell me the losses aren't as bad as I'm afraid they are._

The stricken look on Ahsoka's face spoke volumes but Rex's level tone put a blade into Skirata's gut. "We're taking all of them, Sergeant. Our recent losses were substantial but they'll find a good home in the 501st."

Until they die and we come back for more to replace them. Rex didn't say it aloud, but he didn't have to. It was the nature of war -- soldiers died, more soldiers took their place. The beast of war must be fed. The clones had been trained to accept that fate from the time they were tiny.

But that didn't mean they had to like it. And Skirata could sense that Rex perhaps wasn't as content with his fate as he might have seemed to an outsider. Ahsoka must have sensed Rex's mood as well, probably through the Force, because she reached over and took Rex by the hand, squeezing it tightly.

It was the sort of impulsive, thoughtless gesture that one would expect from one friend to another. Thoughtless not out of cruelty but from kindness. It was a gesture meant to tell Rex that someone else knew his pain. That someone, this certain specific someone, cared about that pain.

It was _not_ the sort of thing that one expected between a commander and a subordinate -- particularly not in public and in full view of an outsider.

Rex stared down at Ahsoka's hand, still holding on to his and Skirata could practically see him trying to figure out what to do about this turn of events. Military protocol and a decade's worth of training warred against a natural sentient's desire for comfort and a very understandable desire to have a pretty girl hold his hand.

"Thank you, ma'am," Rex said, with careful courtesy as he quickly if belatedly extracted his hand from Ahsoka's grip. "Perhaps we should allow Sergeant Skirata to carry on with his business and get along with ours?"

Ahsoka frowned, clearly confused by Rex's coolness. She shrugged, crossing her arms back over her stomach. "If you think so, Rex, sure. You're the boss. It was nice meeting you, Master Skirata."

"Sergeant." Rex fairly growled the word.

Ahsoka sighed, a teenager's sigh of frustration at being corrected. "_Sergeant_ Skirata." A pause, then the Jedi was back in place. "May the Force be with you."

"And you as well." Skirata smiled, mainly at Rex. "_Jatne'kara_, Captain. _K'oyacy.i_" A pause and then he translated: "Good luck and hang in there."

Rex nodded, curt but with a hint of a smile. "Wilco, Sergeant. Good day."

X X X

Skirata walked off as Rex and Ahsoka continued on toward the repple-depple, angling his departure so he could watch them. Ahsoka was talking; Skirata couldn't quite make out the words, though her body language was easy enough to read. She was frustrated, irritated by Rex's change of attitude.

Rex was even easier to read: frustrated no doubt by once again having to explain the facts of life as he saw them to a know-nothing civilian. A know-nothing civilian who just happened to be his superior officer.

As the two walked off, Skirata noticed how their postures changed -- Ahsoka's becoming contrite, Rex's forgiving. In any other pair, Skirata would have found it amusing, even unremarkable. Soldiers, even those of different ranks, often formed bonds with those they'd seen combat with -- bonds that would forgive almost anything.

That one of the soldiers was a pretty girl probably didn't hurt much either, even if her outfit was ridiculously revealing. Not that Skirata thought either one had romance on their mind, not yet anyway but the seeds were there. He knew of plenty of Mango couples who'd realized just how much they loved other in the middle of a firefight. Battles made emotions run high, created friendships and more-than-friendships -- he'd seen it with Mando'ade, he'd seen it with the clones.

Yes, the seeds were there and Skirata was willing to bet that nobody, not the Jedi, not the Republic, not the Chancellor himself had stopped to think about what sort of crop would be raised when those seeds began to sprout.

Skirata shook his head, shuffling off, thanking the stars that when that crop came in, he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the harvest.

He was wrong, of course, but that realization would come later, in the fullness of time.


End file.
